Seth Kaller, Inc.

Lincoln and his allies stand for the Union in the 1864 election. From Harper's Weekly, October 1, 1864.

There are a handful of drafts and other signed copies of both the preliminary and final proclamation. Of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, the Robert Todd Lincoln Family Papers at the Library of Congress, hold a first draft, in the form of an Autograph Manuscript Signed and Endorsed by Lincoln, “Emancipation Proclamation as first-sketched and shown to the Cabinet in July 1862.”   The New York State Library possesses an Autograph Manuscript Draft, with manuscript changes by Secretary of State, William H. Seward, and formal beginning and ending by the chief clerk of the State Department, dated September 22, 1862. This has been issued in facsimile by Lossing, Nicolay and Hay, and others. The National Archives and Records Administration holds the official copy of the preliminary proclamation, signed by Lincoln and Seward, September 22, 1862.  An earlier copy was once reported to be in the Library Company of Philadelphia “partly in Lincoln’s hand; July 25, 1862.” It is, in fact, a predecessor document relating to the Confiscation Act (this manuscript was also sold at a sanitary fair).

The Library of Congress has four manuscript copies, all in secretarial hands, of the final Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln is thought to have given copies to each of his cabinet members. One manuscript has William Seward’s changes; one is believed to have Edward Bates’s changes; one has changes by an unknown individual; and one has no changes (the latter may have been the copies of Chase and Blair). An unsigned draft, in a secretarial hand, sold at Christie’s a few years ago, and could be one of the other cabinet members.

After donating it for sale at Chicago’s Great North Western Sanitary Fair, Lincoln’s handwritten draft was destroyed in the Chicago Fire of 1871, although photographic copies and prints survive.Of course, the National Archives has the official, engrossed copy of the final Emancipation Proclamation issued January 1, 1863.

The only other Lincoln-Signed copies of the Emancipation Proclamation are the privately designed “California printing” features a large flag at the top, but the text of the Proclamation is far from complete. Three were reportedly signed. We can locate two, one in the Gilder Lehrman Collection at New-York Historical Society, and one owned by Louise Taper for eventual donation to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.

Next Page: Appendix III: Slavery and Emancipation in American History